On Kimmel, the actor noted, as others have, that whoever leaked the video held onto it until just before the movie came out—asking, “If the dog was abused, why didn’t he raise something at the time?” (Presumably, the video would be more valuable to TMZ, which sometimes pays for such material, closer to the film’s release.)

And with E.T., Quaid took his comments further: “I was there. I never saw any abuse of any animal. And if there had been, I would have walked.”

“My experience is that the animals were treated great,” Quaid said. “There was no animal abuse on the set. That video that someone took and sold for money and held on to for a year and a half until you could sell it for money—until right before the film’s coming out—does not tell the whole story. Because I’ve seen all the footage, and it’s edited and manipulated. And I think it’s a scam, to tell you the truth.”

Quaid said that in reality, the dog was not frightened—and had, in fact, needed to be restrained from jumping in the water earlier in the day. As the actor saw it, the dog was simply tired of performing the stunt and was ready to get out. “And, in fact, that’s what happened. They took the dog out.”

When E.T. asked how all the controversy surrounding the film makes him feel, Quaid replied, “It makes me angry, to tell you the truth.”

The original post continues below.

It has not been an easy week for the makers of A Dog’s Purpose. Last Thursday, video surfaced of a German shepherd apparently being forced to perform a stunt on-set. Controversy erupted, and by Friday, Universal and Amblin Entertainment had jointly canceled the film’s Los Angeles premiere. But the case is not yet closed. Over the weekend, the author of the book upon which the movie is based spoke out—and PETA, which called for a boycott of the film, fired back. Then, on Monday, producer Gavin Polone made good on his promise to review exactly what happened on-set—offering an inside look at what went wrong and what, in his opinion, might be the way forward.

The video that leaked Thursday to TMZ showed a dog named Hercules being lowered repeatedly into a pool of churning water, despite the animal's clear distress. In a later cut, the dog is seen going under the water as crew members yell and rush toward him.

As W. Bruce Cameron, who wrote the book from which A Dog’s Purpose was adapted, told CNN, “The written commentary accompanying the edited video mischaracterizes what happened.” Cameron added that the video shocked him “because when I was on-set, the ethic of everyone was the safety and comfort of the dogs.” Cameron said the dog, Hercules, was upset not because of the water but because he had rehearsed the stunt from the left side of the pool—and in the video, he was being prompted to perform it from the right side. Like most who saw the video, Cameron admitted that he “didn’t like” the part at the end of the video—when Hercules’s head goes under water—but noted that crew members were present to help.

“Mistakes were made, and everything needs to be done to make sure those errors are not repeated,” Cameron said. “But the reason American Humane certifies that no animals were harmed during the making of the film is that no animals were harmed during the making of the film.”

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PETA evidently found the Cameron’s remarks insufficient, rebutting with its own statement: “It takes a cold heart not to find this footage disturbing, so PETA asks whether ‘A Dog’s Purpose’ was written from the heart or just to make a buck,” PETA VP Lisa Lange told Variety. “If additional footage exists, it should be made public, but it won’t change the footage of a terrified dog forced into churning water any more than nanny cam footage of a bedtime story changes footage of a caregiver hitting a child.”

But producer Gavin Polone—himself a passionate animal rights activist who immediately expressed dismay at what he saw in the video—questioned the animal rights group’s own ethics in handling the situation, in an op-ed published Monday by The Hollywood Reporter:

As I’ve said, [PETA] has called for a boycott of the movie and, unlike
any other major animal welfare group, has been fomenting negative
publicity around these events with great energy. Not only have they
been circulating the TMZ video, which portrays an inaccurate picture
of what happened, but they have included a clip from our trailer where
you see the dog jumping into a treacherous rushing wall of water. But
THAT ISN’T A REAL DOG, it is a computer-generated dog leaping into the
water.

Polone outlined a scenario similar to the one Cameron laid out—noting the same discrepancy in which the dog had been asked to perform the stunt, and adding that the video was cut deceptively to make it look as though the dog had been forced into the water and subsequently submerged. In fact, shooting did stop, and the dog was returned to the side of the pool on which he had rehearsed the stunt—at which point he jumped in on his own. The portion of the video that showed the dog going under the water occurred during that take. Polone added that after seeing the footage of Hercules that was taken on Thursday, “I’m happy to say that Hercules is obviously quite well.”

Polone made clear in his editorial that he regrets the mistakes that were made on-set—and that he accepts responsibility for whatever part he played in allowing them to happen. But he also questioned PETA’s position on the issue, and the viability of its stance going forward.

“After this story broke, I exchanged emails with Lisa Lange, a senior VP at PETA,” Polone writes. “In response to my suggesting again that we should focus on replacing AHA”—the American Humane Association, which was in charge of making sure this film abided by ethical standards of animal treatment—”she countered that the group isn’t in favor of better protection for animals on sets but rather ‘to remove them entirely.’ She went on to urge me to never use any animals in movies or television again. When PETA means ‘any,’ it means no cats or dogs. Zero animals, ever. That is its position.”

To Polone, films like A Dog’s Purpose play an important role in fostering interest and support for animal welfare. Requiring all media to replace all animals with C.G.I. (computer-generated imagery) stand-ins would astronomically drive up costs, Polone argues, and effectively prevent many of these projects from getting made—outweighing the potential benefits to animal actors. PETA has not yet responded to Polone’s op-ed.